JetLinks

FutureTap, a new iPhone development shop, has just announced their purchase of “Where To”, formerly a TapTapTap application. What’s interesting about this story is how openly new owner Ortwin Gentz describes the process of evaluating the application’s value before making a bid for it.

It’s a fascinating look into the business side of iPhone application development that offers a lot of insight for investors and developers alike. I know Ortwin personally, so I know “Where To” is is very capable hands.

The original iPhone headphones are great in a lot of ways (sleek design, unobtrusive microphone and remote), but are a bit lackluster where it counts – sound quality. There are various 3rd party alternatives of course, but I’ve yet to see one with a mic / remote as nice as Apple’s original.

One iPhone user over at everythingicafe decided to take matters into his own hands and has modded his original headphones, replacing the earbuds with the in-ear buds from his Crossroad X3’s.

The result looks pretty nice and others have had success with this mod as well. (I’m not brave enough to try it with my Shure SE310’s though…)

A lot has been written about Skitch since it was first released as an invite-only and later as a public beta over a year ago, however I was just using it (like I seem to everyday) and was wondering why Plasq still hasn’t officially released this gem. It boasts an image editor, screenshot tool, free online image hosting, easy uploading to FTP or WebDAV servers and much much more…

So if you haven’t yet checked it out, do yourself a favour and go take a look!

A question that never stop being asked is where new Mac users can find OS X equivalents of their favorite Windows apps. Whilst some people would say to just head over to VersionTracker or MacUpdate, I’ve found they’re usually a bit overwhelming: I don’t want to sift through every update, utility or abandoned freeware if all I want is to find a semi-decent FTP client.

So here are 3 sites I’d recommend anyone new to the Mac should check out if you’re looking for the right app for the job:

Dustin MacDonald has given users a first glimpse of his new RSS reader “Times” on his blog.

Unlike other RSS readers that use an interface similar to a desktop email client, Times promises a new interface that looks reminiscient of a traditional newspaper.

The standout – and probably most controversial feature – is Times’ abillity to follow links within a RSS feed to retrieve the actual content of a story from a webpage, strip the advertising and formatting from the webpage and display it alongside other feeds. However MacDonald also states that this feature is mainly targeted at larger news sites that tend to only include one paragraph teaser in their feed.

All in all this looks like a very welcome fresh approach in the crowded category of RSS readers and will surely be an Apple Design Award contender (Times will be released this coming Friday, the deadline for ADA submissions is May 12th – so expect to see a few more announcements this week…)